NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

In the past two columns, Vic and I have explored how much things have changed during the past couple hundred years in a number of areas. We cruised around the topic of transportation as we discussed horses, automobiles and the coming end of crude oil supplies.

We took a look at how society values paper as it went from a precious commodity to something we throw away by the megaton. Today, we’re going to hit some highlights in the medical field.

Oddly enough, it is my interest in genealogy that has led to this look at the major changes that have occurred in daily living during the past 200 years.

As I’ve traced my ancestors (and Vic’s) back to revolutionary times in colonial America, I’ve paid attention to how people lived in those earlier times.

My great-great-grandfather William Williams was a medical doctor in rural Indiana in the mid to late 1800s.

The big killers back then were tuberculosis, typhus, typhoid, scarlet fever, cholera, dysentery and smallpox.

In those days, doctors made house calls by horse and buggy. Medicine consisted mainly of treating wounds and broken bones, and delivering babies. The therapies, often bleeding or purgatives, were generally ineffective in curing diseases.

When my mother was a child, she developed pneumonia. Her grandmother, who practiced herbal and folk medicine, treated her with onion poultices.

Onions were baked in a wood-fired oven until they were soft, then wrapped in cheesecloth and packed onto the chest.

The soothing, moist warmth and fragrant fumes would probably have helped a child breathe better, although it could do nothing to actually cure the disease.

Often the purpose of medicine is to simply alleviate symptoms and provide comfort or support to our bodies while our immune systems fight off the actual diseases.

When my brother and I got upset stomachs in the 1940s and 1950s, we received paregoric. The doctor prescribed it, and our mother administered it.

It stopped our GI symptoms, but my brother and I would get higher than kites in a March wind because paregoric contained opium. Such was the state of medicine back then.

The world saw a great reduction in mortality from the time of the Revolutionary War to the early 20th century. Starting in the late 1700s, a rising standard of living (such as more available food) and better sanitary practices contributed to a decrease in mortality through reduction in disease. Starting around 1925, better disease treatments became available.

A medical breakthrough in the fight against disease occurred in 1928 with the discovery that a substance in a particular mold could kill bacteria. This was the antibiotic penicillin. But it wasn’t until the 1940s that penicillin was isolated and produced in powdered form, then suspended in sterile fluid for injection.

I received some of those early penicillin shots. The glass syringes and 18-gauge needles were washed, sterilized and reused; the penicillin solution was lumpy. The needle would clog, and the doctor would have to shoot me twice to get the job done. Fortunately, drugs are better now.

Another benefit of modern medicine is immunization against childhood diseases. Smallpox used to kill 30% of its victims. Mortality was as high as 80% among children.

In ancient China, parents didn’t even bother to name their children until the youngsters had caught and survived it. Smallpox and other infectious diseases brought over from Europe killed 90% of the infected population of the New World’s native inhabitants because they were not able to develop a natural resistance or immunity.

A primitive form of vaccination for smallpox was developed using dried scabs from smallpox victims. George Washington had his troops inoculated with this material during the Revolutionary War.

One of my ancestors, Thomas Sturgeon, served in the Revolutionary Army from the time he was 13 in 1775 until the war ended in 1783. He may have been among those inoculated. Then in 1798, Dr. Edward Jenner developed a vaccination for smallpox from the cowpox virus.

This tremendously successful vaccine eventually eliminated smallpox in the developed world. However, smallpox remained a major killer in undeveloped countries. In the early 1950s, there were about 50 million cases of smallpox a year worldwide.

The World Health Organization declared war on smallpox and set out to vaccinate every at-risk person on the planet. They succeeded.

The last natural case of smallpox occurred in 1977. The disease was declared banished 30 years ago. Children no longer need to be vaccinated against it. Of course, Vic and I were vaccinated, as were almost all children in the U.S. We carry scars on our arms to this day, battle scars in the fight to eradicate that deadly virus from the face of the earth.

Times have changed radically, especially in the last 80 years, in the field of medicine. Thanks to modern medicine, more of us survive childhood and live to a ripe old age.

As medical care and general prosperity advance, the poor of the planet don’t feel compelled to make so many babies. As a result, birth rates in most developed countries are dropping. This is good news for everyone.

As we hurtle headlong into the 21st century, let’s rejoice in things new as we remember things past. And for goodness sake, let’s take advantage of the many advances in modern medicine.

This is a friendly reminder that the first month of a new year is a good time to make those doctor and dentist appointments for an annual exam. If it’s been a year — gasp, or more — since you’ve seen your doctor or dentist, go do it. Live well. Live long. Be happy.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.